Photobooks of 2016: Mariela Sancari

Photobooks of 2016: Mariela Sancari


Anaesthesia by Valentina Abenavoli

Black, dark, beautiful and thought provoking book. All the images are screen shots from news channels and media feed very intelligent and purposefully related to texts that act like merciless anchors. In a very crude and bluntly manner, the book presents an interesting and necessary reflection: the complex and multilayered relationship between the image and the viewer, with its origin in issues of the medium and representation. I feel drawn to this book, to its ruthless yet poetic way to shake our numbed eyes and minds.

 

Every night temo ser la dinner by Sofía Ayarzagoitia
This book is a journal, a chaotic journey, full of energy. The images show the author’s encounters with different men in Madrid. The pictures, acid and utterly disconcerting are interspersed with texts written by Sofía. True to the book´s honesty, these texts are written in pocho: a mix of spanish and english, mostly spoken in the northern part of Mexico, close to the border, where she is from. There is a lot of personality and irreverence to this book and the sensation that we are witnessing her crazy roamings, not knowing how it will end.

 

Cucurrucucú by Cristina de Middel
In a very playful manner, Cristina de Middel addresses, through black humor, a deep and complicated reflection on the way violence is represented in photography, particularly in mexican society, and the role we play as spectators. Combining drawings she made from photographs of a red press mexican newspaper called Alerta with lyrics of well known traditional rancheras songs, she creates a powerful comment on violence, its manipulation and our part in this morbid spectacle.

 

La forma bruta by Martín Bollati
A compelling object that reflects on the “creation” of history. The idea behind editing and sequencing is building relations amongst images: such is the methafor of this book, relating the possibility of creating a narrative to the way the History is created and tell.

 

Santa Barbara Return the Jobs back to US by Alejandro Cartagena
Santa Barbara return the jobs back to US is chilling portrait of the American society. Masterfully edited and sequenced, every double page suggests tension, disavowal, something hushened for a long time that now seems uncontrollable. Somehow it feels like a premonition, like the calm before the storm, the overriding feeling that things are not quite what they seem to be.

 

Mariela Sancari is an Argentinian photographer living in Mexico for 20 years. Last year she published her first photobook “Moisés” and is currently working on her next publication.

 

Images – top: Santa Barbara return the jobs back to US by Alejandro Cartagena, bottom: Anaesthesia by Valentina Abenavoli

Anaesthesia

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